Half way round the world

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After searching the Lonely Planet, we decided to stop in at a little place called Curio Bay in the Catlins on the south coast. This turned out to be a seriously lucky find as we had a lovely little camp site and we sharing the bay with a permenant family of 20 hector dolphins. At sunset many of the dolphins started messing around in the surf making for a great show! We also got to see some very rare yellow eyed penguins coming in for the night.

The next day we followed on the penguin theme by heading up to Dunedin, famous for both blue penguins and yellow-eyed. We stopped in at the Niagara Falls Cafe in Niagara Falls - not as amazing as the Canadian ones but thankfully a whole lot less touristy. This was a lovely place and well worth a recommendation as a brunch spot.

After a pretty boring drive up to Dunedin we went straight into town to get up to speed on internet, etc. It could have been the continual rain, but we weren't taken by Dunedin at all. It is marketed as Scotland in NZ (and apparently has more bagpipers too) but despite it being Burns Night, we couldn't find anywhere worth going for a wee dram. We decided on a makeshift curry night at the campsite instead - yum yum.

Before we left Dunedin we had planned to visit the albatross and penguin colonies but with more rain and pretty cheeky prices for both we moved straight on to Omarau.

Omarua is slightly further up the coast and a good stop off point for us on the way to Mount Cook. It is a really good looking town with beautiful old shipping warehouses. It seemed slightly deserted which was strange but was great for a wander round. We finally did see our blue penguins there as they have a viewing gallery for a colony set up by Department of Conservation. We watched well over 50 of the little critters come a shore just after sun down. They were so cute and funny as they waddled up the beach to their nests.

Having had a lovely stop off in Omarau and the chance for a lie in, we headed to Mount Cook as the finale to our NZ road trip.

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Photos

A lonely yellow eyed penguin
Apparently they wait for a buddy to come in before coming up the shore. This little guy waited well over 5 hours!

Our furthest away from home?
We think this is as far away as we will get. So guess what .... we are on the way home!